Meaning of Language – Semantics Pragmatics

  

Meaning of Language –

Semantics & Pragmatics

Intro. to General Linguistics

Nina Setyaningsih

  What is meaning?

• Many linguists make a distinction between
• – Literal/conventionalized meaning
• “core meaning”, independent of context
• This belongs to semantics
• – Speaker meaning & context
>What a speaker means when they say something, over and above the literal meaning.
• This and other “contextual” effects belong to pragmatics

  

The study of meaning

• Semantics is the study of meaning of morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences.

  

Lexical semantics deals with the meaning of

words, and the relationship among words.

  

Sentential/phrasal semantics deals with the

  meaning of syntactic units larger than the word.

• Pragmatics is the study of how context affects meaning.

Lexical Semantics

• It is the study of how and what the words of a language denote.
• Semantic properties: The components of meaning of a word.
• Semantic feature (SF): A notational device for expressing the presence or absence of semantic properties by pluses and minuses.
• Componential analysis: the analysis of words through

  structured sets of semantic features, which are given as

  “present”, “absent” or “indifferent with reference to

• Example of componential analysis: man = [+ male], [+ mature] woman = [– male], [+ mature] boy = [+ male], [– mature] girl = [– male] [– mature] child = [+/– male] [– mature]
• In other words, the word girl can have three basic factors (or semantic properties): human, young, and female

  : words that have the same meanings, e.g. start & begin.

  

Lexical Relations

• Synonymy

  : words that are opposite in meanings, e.g. hot & cold.

• Antonymy

  : A word which has two or more related meanings, e.g. bright: ‘shining’ ; ‘intelligent’

• Polysemy

  : A word which has two or more entirely distinct meanings, e.g. club: ‘a social organization’ ; ‘a blunt weapon’.

• Homonymy

  : Different words pronounced the same but spelled differently, e.g. two and too.

• Homophony
• Homography : Different words spelled the same but pronounced differently, e.g. tear.
• Hyponymy : Words whose meanings are specific instances of a more general word, e.g.

  red and blue are hyponyms of the word color.

• Metonymy : A word substituted for another word with which it is closely associated, e.g.

  Moscow for the Russian government.

  : Two sentences that can have the same meaning.

  Sentential Relations

• Paraphrase

  b. Paul bought a car from Sue & Sue sold a car to Paul

  The tiger is dead.

  : a relation in which the truth of one sentence necessarily implies the truth of another.

• Entailment
• Examples of asymmetrical entailment.

  b. Robin is a man Robin is human

  : When two sentences cannot

• Contradiction both be true.

  a. Charles is a bachelor.

  b. Charles is married.

  : a word or phrase for one thing that

• Metaphor

  is used to refer to another thing in order to show or suggest that they are similar Example: Life is a roller coaster.

  Pragmatics

• This a subfield of linguistics concerned with

  speech acts

• J. L Austin (1962) – language is made up of

  Speech Acts

• Speech Acts are actions that bring about change in the existing state of affairs Eg. You are fired. - end of employment

  I give up! - refusal to proceed

• By saying “I warn you that there is a sheepdog

  in the closet”, you not only say something, you warn someone.

• Verbs like bet, promise, warn, and so on are

  performative verbs, i.e. verbs that can be

  used to perform the acts they name

  

Some common speech acts

Speech Act Function Assertion conveys information Question elicits information Request (more or less politely) elicits action Order demands action Promise commits the speaker to an action

Threat commits the speaker to an action that the

  

The cooperative principles

• Grice (1989) proposed four maxims to explain how people cooperate when they speak: Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner.
• When a maxim is violated (or “flouted”), a

  

conversational implicature results, i.e., the

  utterance receives an interpretation that goes beyond the words that are spoken.

Maxims of Conversations

• The maxim of quantity Make your contribution as informative as required. No more and no less.
• The maxim of quality Do not say what you believe to be false and do not say what you lack evidence for.
• The maxim of relevance Be relevant
• The maxim of manner Avoid obscurity, ambiguity. Be brief and orderly.

Examples

  1. I’m a multimillionaire (Actually, I’m penniless.) Violated maxim: Quality (The speaker has failed to tell the truth.)

  2. A: When am I going to get back the money I lent you?

  B: Boy, it’s hot in here!

Violated maxim: Relevance (B’s answer is not related to A’s

question.)

  3. A: What should I do to get rid of this headache, Doctor? B: Take some medicine.

  Violated maxim: Quantity (B has not provided enough information.)

  4. John: Let's get the kids something.

  Mary: OK, but not I-C-E C-R-E-A-M.

  Violated maxim: Manner (Mary is going out of their way to be a

  

Politeness

• • Besides cooperation, most interactions are governed

  by politeness, that is to say by what is considered a

  “polite social behavior” within a certain culture.
• Brown and Levinson (1987) argue that politeness in language is centered around the notion of face –

  “the public self-image that every member wants to

  claim for himself” – and the efforts made by interlocutors to “maintain each other’s face.”

• Polite usage of language comes into play whenever a speaker has the potential to produce a face-threatening act (FTA), an utterance that undermines the face of the individual to whom the utterance is directed.

  If three people are speaking and one says to another, “You look horrible today,” the embarrassment that this utterance causes

• • In determining the exact level of politeness that

  will be employed to mitigate an FTA, Brown and

  Levinson (1987:15) propose 3 considerations:

  1. power relationships existing between speakers

  2. social distance 3. the level of impoliteness that the FTA would create.

  

Power relationships

• In any social group, there will be differing power relationships among people.

• • Example: In a classroom, there will be a disparate

  power relationship between teacher and students: the teacher will be a superordinate and the students subordinates. Most of the students will be equals.

• Power relationship affects how people communicate.
• Students may use honorifics (Professor,

  Doctor) to address their teachers as a way of explicitly marking the disparate power relationship. In contrast, students may use first names to address one another as a way of indicating that they are equals.

  

Social distance

How close a social relationship individuals have.

  Intimates will have very little social distance between them, whereas a teacher and students will have a greater social distance separating them

• The greater social distance, the greater the requirement for polite usage of language

• • Example: calling one’s boss sweetheart is likely to be

  perceived as highly inappropriate and impolite, unless the boss and employee know each other well

  Face and politeness strategies • Speakers have strategies for lessening the threat.

• Positive politeness strategies: - minimize the threat to the hearer’s positive face.
• are used to make the hearer feel good about himself, his interests or possessions
• Some strategies of positive politeness include

  statements of friendship, solidarity, compliments

• • Example: You must be hungry, it's a long time since

  breakfast. How about some lunch?

• Negative politeness strategies are oriented towards the hearer’s negative face and emphasize avoidance of imposition on the hearer.
• Example: I’m sorry; it’s a lot to ask, but can

  you lend me a thousand dollars?

  See you next week!